As the years have passed, Rufus Wainwright’s creative output has become increasingly ambitious. Having started off with jaunty (if showy) piano pop songs, his recorded work has swelled in scale, reaching its apex with the enormous productions of his last few records. In addition to this, two of his most recent projects have been a painstakingly constructed retelling of Judy Garland’s Judy at Carnegie Hall, and more recently he has staged his first opera Prima Donna, which tells the tale of an aging soprano. Clearly then, it might come as something of a surprise that his sixth album’s twelve songs feature only voice and piano. This less expansive approach was a conscious reaction to the increasingly ostentatious nature of his more recent recordings, and given the ill health of his mother Kate McGarrigle (who died in January) it is a logical step. The outcome of all this is that All Days Are Nights shows Rufus Wainwright at his most vulnerable, and features some of the starkest, most emotionally naked songs he has ever written.Although the base ingredients of the record might be more minimal, this is far from a simple or straightforward album. In fact, it is probably one of the densest that we will see this year. It sashays into life with ‘Who Are You New York?’, all glittering arpeggios and snapshots of slightly stalkerish imagery set against a backdrop of The Big Apple’s landmarks. Like large swathes of the rest of the record, by isolating Wainwright’s piano playing from the heaps of instrumentation which sometimes overwhelm it, it shows his precocious musical ability, as well as dramatically emphasising his most powerful asset, that extraordinary voice which has won him so many devotees over the years.
Rufus has recently said that All Days Are Nights was a means of mourning his mother while she was still alive, so unsurprisingly the lyrical content is dominated by Kate. He has never shied away from the intimate when writing songs, but even by Wainwright’s standards, his lyrics here are often disarmingly. The clearest example of this is ‘Martha’, a poignant rallying cry to his sister, backed by a twinkling piano line, to spend more time with their mother as her health deteriorates (and also their father – which given the past antagonism is a telling sign of the family’s pressing need to be united). There is desperation in Rufus’ voice which reflects the fact that, really, only his sister knows exactly how all this feels. The uncomfortably intimacy of ‘Martha’ furthers a longstanding Wainwright/McGarrigle lyrical characteristic, and the fact that Rufus can make you feel like a voyeur, intruding on something too private for the likes of the general public, underlines his gift as a songwriter.
The Spartan components of the album mean that there is a strong sense of cohesiveness, but there is still one song which sticks out like a sore thumb. ‘Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now!’ appears, at least on the surface, a bouncy, throwaway number which would sit more comfortably on earlier Wainwright recordings than a record as intense as this. Scratch the surface, though and the song contains serious vitriol aimed at the opera purists who lambasted Prima Donna. However, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the perky melody is a failed attempt to offset the spite, and the song just ends up feeling a little out of place.
The latter stages of the album allow those not familiar with Rufus’ extra-curricular activities a bit more of an insight into his other life, starting with a trio of Shakespearian sonnets set to new musical compositions which featured in a Berlin production last year. Rufus brings the sonnets to life beautifully with his vocal delivery and three of the loveliest melodies on the record. This will be the point at which casual observers will either become completely entranced, or just drop off the map altogether because the sonnets prove heavy going on an already intense record. It becomes ever clearer as All Days Are Nights progresses that it is not an ‘easy’ album, but it is so much more rewarding and emotionally engaging for that. The decision to feature three sonnets rather than just one or two is further evidence of Rufus’ shameless and boundless sense of ambition. His flights of fancy might not always prove successful, but they are crucial to his work and a major factor in what makes him so captivating as an artist.
The final nod to his non-pop star activities is the penultimate song on the album, ‘Les Feux D’Artifice T’Appellent’, a rendition of the closing aria of Prima Donna, on which its protagonist Madame Saint Laurent reflects on the end of her career as an opera singer. The sense of sadness tinged with the tiniest glimmer hope is captured and delivered beautifully, and encapsulates the overall tone of the record entirely. In a far simpler way, so does ‘Zebulon’, which closes the album in devastating fashion. Delivered as an entreaty to a childhood friend and crush, and set to an austere melody, it sets out Rufus feelings about his lot in the simplest, most heartbreaking tones: “My Mother’s in the hospital / My Sister’s at the opera / I’m in love but let’s not talk about it”. It is probably the most beautiful song in Rufus Wainwright’s canon, and seems the most fitting way to end a record as draining, complicated and flawed as this.
The tone and content of All Days Are Nights give it an air of finality which has been echoed in the live shows which have supported it. Were I a betting man, I would wager that we would be far more likely to see another Rufus Wainwright opera before another album. If this does prove to be his last album for a while, then it is certainly a fitting way to draw a line under this phase of his career.
